Dancing in the Rain
by owluvr
Summary: When Katie was little, she used to love to dance in the rain.


They're both broken.

Both broken by the war.

They've seen too much.

They're two lost souls, trying to find one another.

They just don't know it yet.

-X-

They weren't always this way. When she was young, she wasn't like this. When she was young, and the heavens opened up she would go outside and dance. Dance in the rain. Laughing, spinning, twirling, without a single care in the world.

"I'm free," she would tell her mother.

"Katie, come inside," her father would say, "You're going to catch a cold."

"No," her mother said to him, "Let her enjoy it. Let her be a kid. She's going to grow up too fast."

Sometimes, Katie wondered if her mother was a seer.

-X-

When she got older and went to Hogwarts, she still did it sometimes. The other kids used to make fun of her, telling her that she was stupid and weird. But she didn't care. It was the one place where she felt free, where she felt happy. One day, someone else joined her.

"Hi," she said nervously when she came up to her.

"Hello," Katie said quietly. The stood in silence for a few minutes.

"Why do you always dance in the rain?" the girl suddenly asked.

"Because it makes me feel happy," Katie answered, "Would you like to try?"

"Alright," she said, "I'll try."

"I'm Katie, by the way," Katie said with a smile.

"Leanne," she replied.

-X-

Getting put under the Imperious Curse was surreal. She could see everything she was saying and doing, but she couldn't control herself at all.

And when she touched the necklace and flew up into the air, all she could think about was how she wished and wished it would rain so that she could drown herself in it.

-X-

Then the battle came along. There were curses flying everywhere, looking like freak fireworks and no matter how much she tried to drown the noises out she just _couldn't _and she could hear people screaming their last screams. Death was everywhere and everyone seemed to be dying. But there seemed to be more people crying.

She ignored how much their tears looked like raindrops.

-X-

After the war, she decided to stop dancing in the rain. She thought it was stupid and childish. And she wasn't a child anymore. She was a hundred year old woman in a twenty year old woman's body.

-X-

One day, years after the war, she woke up to the sound of rain on her window pane. Katie looked outside her window, and got up, not really knowing what she was doing until she was outside. Standing in the rain.

And then she started dancing and dancing, like she had never danced before, her arms spread wide, and laughing the whole entire time, like she had never been broken by the war. Like she was young and innocent and _happy, _something she'd thought she'd never feel again.

-X-

After that day, Katie realised that she needed to stop wallowing, and get a move on with her life. So, she joined the Puddlemore United Quidditch Team. That's where she saw Oliver again.

They both were on the Puddlemore United Quidditch Team. Though they talked together sometimes, they were hardly close. They reminded each other of the war, of death and destruction, and of people they lost. And neither of them wanted _that_.

They just wanted to get fixed.

-X-

One practice, it started to rain, and Katie led everyone outside.

"Katie, what are we doing?" Oliver asked. She smiled.

"We're going to dance," she said.

"In the rain?" he asked skeptically. She nodded.

"Come on everyone," she said, and she started to spin and twirl and laugh. In a few minutes, everyone was doing it. Except for Oliver.

"No way," he said when Katie came over to him. She rolled her eyes.

"Come on," she protested, "It'll be _fun_."

"Fun?" he asked.

"Fun," she answered, "Most normal people have it. You did too, before the war."

"Yeah, before the war," he said.

"Look," she said, "The war's over, Oliver. It's in the past and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. So we've just got to move on, and try and live our lives. That's what everyone would've wanted."

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Fine," she replied, "Don't dance for all I care. Live your whole life wallowing in the war." She started to walk away.

"Katie," he called. She looked back at him.

"I'll try," he consented, "But I'll warn you, I'm not a very good dancer." She laughed.

"Neither am I," she said, "But it's _rain_. It's not judging." he smiled, maybe for the first time in years.

-X-

They ended up staying longer than everyone else, dancing in the rain. It just seemed to cleanse them, all their emotions, all their fears, all the things from the battle, none of it bothered them while they were together, dancing in the rain.

They were free.

-X-

A/N-For thefirstservant's Chinese Moon Festival Competition with the prompt "dancing" and ladyoftheknightley's School Subjects Competition with Defense Against the Dark Arts. My first ever Katie/Oliver!


End file.
